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ABOUT THIS ALBUM

Album Notes

Hello, my name is Shurlene Wallace. I and my sister Earlene Carr are what many in the UFO community call, “contactees.” For those that may not be familiar with the terminology, this means that we have interaction with various races of galactic beings. These beings are more commonly referred to as “extraterrestrials” or “aliens” by our society. I prefer to call them our Galactic Friends or Galactic Family.

This odyssey has been probably the most enriching and personally rewarding experience I have ever had in my life. It has taught me so many wondrous and new things about myself, my relationship to other people and given me a broader perspective of life throughout the galaxy.

The song is written with our new lyrics to an old tune titled, Battle Hymn of the Republic. This song holds a particularly rich history in our country’s past which I would like to share briefly before we get into how our song came about.

The first known version of the song was titled, On Cannan’s Happy Shore. It was sung at camp meetings during the civil war. Some believe the song originated with slaves but this point has never been documented. There is an old story of how young Negro girls would ceremoniously dance to this melody every time they heard it. When an elder slave shaman was asked by the white visiting troops why the girls danced liked this, the shaman explained that it was believed that if they did not dance when they heard that melody, they were destined forever to be spinsters. Today, many African Americans know that many old Negro spirituals held hidden messages woven into the songs. For instance, Wade In The Water, told slaves to use the rivers as escape routes so the slavers dogs would not be able to follow the scent. It was surmised that the purpose of the melody was more than likely used to induce slave masters to treat their slaves more humanely and perhaps even appeal to their consciousness to let their slaves go free.

When Julia Ward Howe wrote her version, she claimed to have experienced the words coming to her in the night and she wrote them in the dark. She went on to say, it’s as if the words wrote themselves.

Our version is very similar; as we believe that the words were inspired by our Galactic friends and the words to the song came once we decided to write our new version. To share how our version of the song came about, on one particular evening, I was lying on my bed, and soon found myself taken away in an elevator like container that floated through the galaxy. I remember drifting through the timelessness of space, once again viewing the awesomeness of it. Both while in the box like structure, and upon being returned to my bed, I heard a song being played as though it was on the radio. I recognized the tune which is a familiar song in our country. The tune was to the song titled, The Battle Hymn of The Republic. I had no idea why this particular song was playing for me to hear.

Shortly after that experience, I and my sister began to have an interesting series of coincidences that continued to bring this particular melody back into our awareness. For instance, my sister invited me to a concert for an incredible acapalla singing group, called Sweet Honey In The Rock. We were so moved by their inspiring songs, that we decided to purchase their CD during the intermission. Unfortunately, they had sold out by the time we got to the front of the table. A week or so later, Earlene still desiring to buy their CD stopped at a Blockbuster Music Store and purchased one of their CDs. To our surprise, we noticed that a song was listed on this particular CD entitled “Sojourners Battle Hymn”. The song details a story of slaves that were freed to fight in the Civil war. Coincidentally, the song is composed to the melody of the “Battle Hymn Of The Republic”.

The next coincidence involving this melody occurred when we went to a musical exhibition titled Wade In The Water. It featured the history of black gospel group from the 1950’s and 1960’s. As we walked along, my sister excitedly called me to see an exhibit of Sojourner Truth. We were both shocked to see a huge display detailing the entire history of the various lyrics of this same melody. All three renditions were displayed. The display included the Battle Hymn OfThe Republic, Sojourner’s Battle Hymn and John Brown’s Body which was an earlier version of this melody written before the Battle Hymn Of The Republic by Julia Ward Howe in 1862. Ms. Truth’s version memorialized the African slaves who were to fight in the Civil War. What was so interesting about Sojourner Truth’s version was that she composed words to this and other familiar melodies in spite of the fact she had never learned to read or write. It was for us another interesting piece of a puzzle that was unfolding before our very eyes. After the exhibit, we wondered what had been the significance of our having this melody once again brought into our awareness.

The last coincidence, but certainly not the least, was the fact that on July 4th, NASA sent the Pathfinder to Mars to collect soil samples and explore the surface of Mars. A twelve old by the name of Valerie Ambroise of Bridgeport, Ct., competed in an international competition of nearly 17,000 entrants who wrote essays on how a planetary rover named for their heroine would translate these accomplishments to the Martian environment. Representatives from JPL and NASA Headquarters selected Ms. Ambroise essay as the winning essay, thus naming the Mars Pathfinder rover “Sojourner,” because it meant traveler. Ms. Truth explained that God had directed her to leave her home and travel to the north, which was a distance from her home to begin preaching her message against slavery and equality for women. Rightfully NASA named the Pathfinder after this great African-American as its job was to travel to Mars to seek out new information, which might propel humankind in a new direction. Hearing her name reminded me of the song. Was the voice of this great ancestor trying to come forth and tell me something from another realm?

On Memorial Day of 1997, we were at my sister’s house contemplating all of the interesting coincidences that had occurred around this melody. Earlene suddenly said to me, that she believes that we should write our own lyrics similar to The Battle Hymn Of The Republic and Sojourner’s Battle Hymn except we would make our song about man’s emergence into the galactic family of planets. Of course, I thought that she was crazy. I immediately chimed in, “we are not songwriters, and we should hire someone to write it.” Her response was “Shurlene, you can’t just go to a professional songwriter, explain these other worldly experiences, and ask him to encapsulate it in a song similar to The Battle Hymn Of The Republic.” She went on to explain that this had to be our job and that perhaps this was the reason I had brought the song back from my “experience” with our Galactic friends and perhaps that was why we were experiencing all of these coincidences around the song. Earlene began writing and handed me a pen and paper and I decided to give it a shot. By the time we had finished, we had written three verses each. We read our verses to each other and thought we had done quite well. When Earlene’s husband, Freddie, returned home, we sang our new version of our song to him. He loved it. He has been so supportive throughout all of our unique experiences. Later as we looked at the words to our new song, we could not help but wonder if the creation of a song was what was meant to happen in light of the chain of events surrounding the song. After writing the new song, the coincidences surrounding the song ended. We named our new song, Galactic Hymn Of Earth’s Emergence.

In closing, we hope that we have served it well in our attempt to describe both humanity’s and Earth’s emergence into dimensions of time and space that has previously lain just below the surface of human consciousness.

We are proud to offer this new version of this historic song. Our desire is that it will facilitate our union with our Star Family.Thank you for your interest in our song.